State of the me

Every time I think about blogging I get this choked up feeling in my belly, like my bowels are cartoonishly crumpling together. Do you know what I mean? Like when cartoon cars smash and adorably fold together? It’s like that but less adorable. Why am I talking about my bowels. Aren’t you glad I updated my blog?

But seriously, blogging, like fiction, has become this looming cloud of FAIL hovering at the edge of my perception. I resent writing because it feels like work and then I childishly ignore it because I can, and I can’t ignore my actual work. Which, by the way, is going well. I can’t say that I’m in a financially rad position but I’ve now made it an entire year supporting myself by writing and that feels good. Sort of the way going down a slide feels good. Hopefully I won’t hit the water awkwardly with water up my nose and my top flying off.

I could bullet point some pretty compelling excuses for not blogging, but the truth is I could find ten minutes here and there. I just haven’t been feeling it. Except lately, every once in a while, I’ve had thoughts that have managed to escape the dark cloud of fail/bowels/etc. Maybe I’ll be able to start making words here again.

Because the thing is, I have stuff to talk about. Like Chipmunk (7) being back in social skills therapy and Moose (5) being totally different at his age than his brother was and thus throwing me for a giant loop. I’d like to talk about how I’ve been working out maybe 5 times a week or so and how it’s completely changed my health/stress/anxiety levels. I want to tell you about quitting coffee and the tremendous benefit it’s had on my sleep issues and, again, my anxiety. (Did I tell you how I got the flu the first week of September and ended up in the hospital twice with an esophageal ulcer from taking Advil for the flu? I can’t remember if I did but boy howdy was that a trip and a half and I am happy every day to not be that sick because it was THE WORST.)

I still want to talk about my kids all day and how they make me feel explodey. Sometimes it’s explodey with rage but often it’s explodey with love. They’re good dudes. Except at Joann Fabrics. Then they’re not good dudes and you want to leave them at Joann Fabrics.

When I get my words back under my fingers again, I’ll write about entering my second year of single motherhood and singleness and how sometimes it feels like the time flew by and sometimes it feels… like shit. I won’t talk about the times when I’m driving on some random errand and I’m crushed with anger and grief, because I’d rather talk about the everyday triumphs of being a person who is stronger and significantly less broken.

Can I tell you about the dude I dated for six weeks who abruptly dumped me over lunch because he “met someone” and how hard it is, sometimes, to swallow back a knee-jerk resentment toward the entire population lady-someones who are younger or not moms or whatever. But I refuse to be that way. Nope.

Right now my life is a lot of silly home improvements, like re-organizing my garage and adding a Craigslist work bench. It’s painting over paintings I got when I bought my first house with my ex-husband. It’s collecting makeup but not wearing it all that often but feeling sassy and pretty when I do. It’s being super glad I bought that Hitachi Magic Wand a few years back. It’s stopping biting my nails long enough that maybe this time it’s for good. It’s cooking again and keeping my house clean. It’s finally feeling competent at my job. It’s stressing about money. It’s selfies. It’s looking forward to time to myself but then looking forward to seeing my kids again even more. It’s touching my toes when I never, ever could.

I’m like a goddamned Alanis Morissette song and I do not give a single baked crap if I’m a divorced lady cliché — I am primarily happy and that’s far more happiness than I’ve been able to lay claim to for a long, long time.